


Existentialism on Prom Night

by Bruce_Bagel



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bruce_Bagel/pseuds/Bruce_Bagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither Jim nor Bones had ever attended their own respective prom, but after the amount of time and energy spent perfecting Joanna’s experience, they decide to throw together an unplanned, two-and-a-half decades late dance for themselves in the living room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Existentialism on Prom Night

Things were different now that so much time had passed. Of course, that’s just the effect that time had on people; change. Jim makes jokes that they’ve been an old married couple since they first got together, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing hysterically at jokes that have been told hundreds of times, starting a good majority of conversations with, “Remember when…”

Jim never thought he’d get to this point with anyone, let alone Bones. He was never a fairytale romance type, happy endings weren’t plausible for Jim Kirk before Leonard McCoy walked into his life and scraped his ass up off the pavement, but now that Jim’s lived it, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He thinks back on all the hard times over the years, raising up Joanna to the best young woman she could possibly be and all the trouble that accompanied, their own fears of breaking up, separating, trouble at work, the second accident, hard anniversaries, relapsing. 

Not to sound cliché, but Jim wouldn’t change it for the world, even the roughest of moments, because even after all the tears and screaming and silent treatments; he and Bones always came back to each other.

Joanna says they were meant to be, because obviously 18-year-olds know everything there is to know about love. Bones humbly agrees under the covers at night, that yeah, maybe they were. He doesn’t look at Jim when he says it, because he’s still afraid that he’ll be sized up and left behind. 

Jim pinky swears that it’ll never happen.

Bones kisses him and pulls him closer, like he does now, as they sway back in forth in the living room. It’s dark, all the lights in the house extinguished except for the orange streetlight pouring in from the kitchen window and the little green clock on the cable box, the power button on the stereo. Bones sighs against Jim’s shoulder where his hands grip loosely at his t-shirt, and Jim’s hands tighten a bit on their spot above Bones’ hips.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes whispers out of the stereo speakers and they undulate slowly, turning with one another smoothly, bare feet shuffling across the carpet.

Jim’s camera lays in sleep-mode on the kitchen table from the rush before Joanna and Carter took off to meet up with their friends at the dance, loaded with photos of their daughter and her boyfriend, Bones in his wrecked jeans and old t-shirt and Joanna in her ruby red dress, Jim threatening Carter to have her home by one. Jim smiles to himself, holds Bones a little tighter, and kisses him softly when Bones picks his head up to look up at him. 

“You alright?” Bones asks when Jim pulls away, a crease of worry between his eyebrows. Jim smiles at him, the kind of smile that makes the corner of his eyes crinkle and Bones’ heart stutter.

“I’m just happy,” Jim whispers, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on the point of Bones’ nose. Bones stutters a laugh and drops his chin to his chest, shaking his head. “Hm?” Jim asks, nudging Bones’ temple with his lips and giving him another soft kiss on the curl of his sideburn that’s slowly fading into more gray than brunette. 

Bones leans in closer as the song fades out, slowly slipping into I Only Have Eyes for You, and kisses Jim, the corners of his mouth quirking up. “I was just thinking the same thing,” he murmurs, and they sway along to the music as they kiss. 

Slowly, Jim pulls away enough to press their foreheads together, closing his eyes. Bones follows suit, holds Jim a little tighter, and promises quietly, “I’ll love you forever.”

Jim opens his eyes to look at Bones through the dark, the outline of his eyelashes above his cheeks, and his stomach knots just like it always does, always has, and smiles. “And I’ll love you always.”

Oscillating along with the stereo, they enjoy one another’s company, share time that doesn’t need to be filled with words. Bones sighs as he moves his arms to Jim’s shoulders, hugging him loosely, intertwining his fingers, and Jim’s hands slide from his hips to around his waist, eliminating any and all space left between them. 

“Always?” Bones asks after a few moments, shifting his hands and rolling his thumb over the band on his finger out of habit. His eyes gazing over Jim’s shoulder at the shadowed family portrait of Jim, Joanna and himself taken on the first trip they ever went on together, all of them 12 years younger. Jim’s Mickey Mouse ears crooked on his head and Joanna grinning around a Dole Whip straw, Leonard smiling with his shoulders hunched, arms around both of their waists. 

Looking back, they were so young. A future ahead of the three of them that they never could have imagined. Bones’ eyes pool, blearing the orange streetlight coming in through the kitchen window, the green clock on the cable box, the power button on the radio. He blinks it back; throat tight, clutching Jim and holding on as though letting go would make him disappear.

“Forever,” Jim promises, slowing their dance to a stop as the song fades out. They stand together in the dark, grasping at one another. The words hang in the air like they did the first time they shared them and every time after; when they got engaged, on the day they were married, kissing each other goodbye before work, before bed, every day without fail. 

Bones knows that Jim means it. Means ever letter, every definition of the word in every language, just as Jim knows it, too. Even as time passes by, slowed through the days, quickly as they reminisce years past, there's one thing for sure; they’re not going anywhere.


End file.
